Banksy: A Graffiti Artist Unmasked - TIME Follow @TIME For years the graffiti artist known as Banksy has been the art world's Deep Throat: a hugely influential figure whose identity remained shrouded in mystery. Now, like Deep Throat, he has been given a name. Banksy is a 34-year-old native of Bristol, England, named Robin Gunningham, Britain's the Mail on Sunday reported on July 13. The thread that may have unraveled the mystery was a 2004 photograph taken in Jamaica, which many  including photographer Peter Dean Rickards  say is the only known picture of Banksy. (The artist's agent, Steve Lazarides, denied that the photo  which depicts a man in jeans and sneakers crouching above a can of spray paint  is of Banksy. A spokeswoman for the artist declined to confirm or deny the Mail's report.) (See pictures of Banksy's art.) With the picture in tow, the Mail canvassed Bristol, unearthing former acquaintances who identified the man in the photo as Gunningham.

A former schoolmate interviewed by the paper recalled that Gunningham was a talented artist, while Luke Egan, an artist who has jointly exhibited with Banksy, told the paper that he shared a Bristol flat with Gunningham in 1998. Asked by the Mail whether Gunningham was Banksy, Egan reportedly replied, "Well, he wasn't then." Gunningham, whose middle-class upbringing bears little resemblance to Banksy's renegade persona, has vanished. (See pictures of Banksy's secret art show.) Since striding onto the scene in the early 1990s, Banksy has vaulted from obscurity to international renown, all the while escaping detection. Among his catalog of greatest hits, Banksy has released an inflatable Guanténamo Bay prisoner doll at Disneyland, depicted England's Queen Elizabeth II as a chimpanzee, tagged the West Bank border fence and sneaked his own Mona Lisa  her inscrutable expression replaced by a yellow smiley face  into the Louvre. "He's kind of captured the zeitgeist," says Gareth Williams, a contemporary-art specialist at Bonhams auction house in London.

"But he's done it in quite an accessible way, so it speaks to people." Even for a vandal, going mainstream has its perks: Banksy's handiwork has commanded millions of dollars at auction from acolytes like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. (See pictures from inside Guantanamo Bay's detention facilities.) But anonymity has been as crucial a part of Banksy's mythology as irony and wit. "Anything that's ever been written about him centers around the anonymity  that he's this Batman, this cult figure," says Pedro Alonzo, who curated an exhibition in England to which Banksy contributed. But that doesn't necessarily mean being unmasked would hurt Banksy's popularity. The intrigue over his identity has been a "double-edged sword," Alonzo says, since it has occluded the messages bundled in his art. "His work is a call to action. It's about hierarchies of power, social injustice and paying attention to issues that aren't being addressed," he adds.

"There could be a bright side to this  the attention being diverted from his identity [could allow] people to really look at his work and consider it." Says Williams: "I don't think the Banksy story ends here." Pinpointing Banksy's identity has long been a popular parlor game, and it's yielded false positives before. Last fall, a passerby in the East London neighborhood of Bethnal Green snapped a camera-phone picture of a man spray-painting a mural later confirmed to be Banksy's. In May, the New York Citybased media blog Gawker suggested that Banksy might be Nick Walker, a British artist who, after being spotted stenciling a mural on the side of a Manhattan restaurant, reputedly told an onlooker that he was the elusive artist. The precision and scope of Banksy's creations have led others to theorize that he may work with a partner or that Banksy serves as the nom de guerre for a group of conspirators. If Banksy has indeed been identified, Williams doesn't think it will puncture Banksy's ballooning sales figures.

But Jeffrey Deitch, an art dealer with close ties to legendary graffiti artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, asks, "When you can buy a superb Picasso drawing for $500,000 and a work dashed off by Banksy for the same price, does that make sense to you?" Still, Deitch, who says he likes a lot of Banksy's work, adds, "I don't think it will have any effect on his output. He's established the brand." What exactly that brand represents has never been entirely clear. Banksy is a paradox: he used his anonymity to court attention and became a commercial success by condemning consumer culture. "I originally set out to try and save the world, but now I'm not sure I like it enough," he wrote in an e-mail to the New Yorker magazine last year. If his veil has been lifted, the world will have a chance to make an assessment of its own. Banksy the graffiti artist unmasked as a former public schoolboy from suburbia | Daily Mail Online comments He is perhaps the most famous, or infamous, artist alive. To some a genius, to others a vandal. Always controversial, he inspires admiration and provokes outrage in equal measure.

Since Banksy made his name with his trademark stencil-style 'guerrilla' art in public spaces - on walls in London, Brighton, Bristol and even on the West Bank barrier separating Israelis and Palestinians - his works have sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds. He has dozens of celebrity collectors including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Christina Aguilera. Enlarge In the frame: The man in this photograph, taken in Jamaica four years ago, is believed to be Banksy He is also known for his headline-making stunts, such as leaving an inflatable doll dressed as a Guantanamo prisoner in Disneyland, California, and hanging a version of the Mona Lisa - but with a smiley face - in the Louvre, Paris. But perhaps his most provocative statement, and the one that generates the most publicity, is the fact that Banksy's true identity has always been a jealously guarded secret, known to only a handful of trusted friends. More recent... Share this article Share A network of myths has grown up around him. That his real name is Robin Banks. That he used to be a butcher. That his parents don't know what he does, believing him to be an unusually successful painter and decorator.

Then there's the suggestion that Banksy is actually a collective of artists and doesn't exist at all. Such is the curiosity about Banksy that when the great man threw a pizza box into a bin in Los Angeles, the box resurfaced on auction site eBay, with the seller suggesting that the few anchovies left inside might yield traces of his DNA. He is the Scarlet Pimpernel of modern art, so adept at leaving false trails that even his own agent has claimed that he is not certain of his identity. Indeed, trying to establish just who the elusive Banksy is has proved as difficult as predicting the location of his next work. Enlarge Famous fans: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at a Banksy show in Los Angeles where they spent £200,000 But now, after an exhaustive year-long investigation in which we have spoken to dozens of friends, former colleagues, enemies, flatmates and members of Banksy's close family, The Mail on Sunday has come as close as anyone possibly can to revealing his identity.

And far from being a radical tearaway from an inner-city council estate, the man we have identified as Banksy is, perhaps all too predictably, a former public schoolboy brought up in middle-class suburbia. Our search began with a photograph taken in Jamaica showing a man in a blue shirt and jeans, with a hint of a smile on his face and a spray can at his feet. Taken four years ago, it was said to show Banksy at work. When the picture was published it appeared to be the first chink in the armour of anonymity with which the artist has shielded himself ever since his work began to attract the attention of the art world. Naturally, Banksy denied the picture was of him. Indeed, as we discovered, Banksy and those close to him tend to deny everything. Armed with this photograph, we travelled to Bristol, long said to have been Banksy's home city, where we made contact with a man who claimed to have once met the artist in the flesh. Of course, many people claim as much, but the moment one starts asking for more information, one discovers they actually 'know someone who met Banksy' - and the trail runs cold.

However, this man claimed not only to have met the elusive artist but was able to furnish us with a name - not the usual variations of the name Banks but one all the more intriguing. The man in the photograph, he insisted, was formerly known as Robin Gunningham - and it didn't require much imagination to work out how such a name could result in the nickname Banksy. From records available to the public, we were able to glean further information. Mystery boy: Robin Gunningham in 1989 when he was a pupil at Bristol Cathedral School, below Robin's father, Peter Gordon Gunningham, 66, is a retired contracts manager from the Whitehall area of Bristol. His mother, Pamela Ann Dawkin-Jones, 67, was a company director's secretary and grew up in the exclusive surroundings of Clifton. She now works in a nursing home. The couple married on April 25, 1970, at Kingswood Wesley Methodist Church.

On February 8, 1972, their daughter Sarah was born at Bristol Maternity Hospital, by which time Peter had been promoted to area manager for a hotel company and the couple had bought their first home, a semidetached house in Bristol. On July 28, 1973, Robin was born in the same hospital. According to neighbours, the boy had early surgery for a cleft palette. When Robin was nine, the family moved to a larger home in the same street and it is there he spent his formative years and became interested in graffiti. A neighbour, Anthony Hallett, recalls the couple moving into the street as newlyweds and living there until 1998. They have since separated. When we showed Mr Hallett the Jamaica photograph, he said the man in it was Robin Gunningham. In 1984, Robin, then 11, donned a black blazer, grey trousers and striped tie to attend the renowned Bristol Cathedral School, which currently charges fees of £9,240 a year and lists supermodel Sophie Anderton as a former pupil.

It is hard to imagine Banksy, the anti-authoritarian renegade, as a public schoolboy wandering around the 17th Century former monastery, with its upper and lower quadrangles and its prayers in the ancient cathedral. But we then found a school photograph, taken in 1989, of a bespectacled Robin Gunningham in which he shows a discernible resemblance to the man in the Jamaica photograph. Indeed, fellow pupils remember Robin, who was in Deans House, as being a particularly gifted artist. Scott Nurse, an insurance broker who was in Robin's class, said: 'He was one of three people in my year who were extremely talented at art. He did lots of illustrations. I am not at all surprised if he is Banksy. He was also in the house rugby team and I think he played hockey as well.' In the rare interviews Banksy has given (always anonymously), the artist has acknowledged that it was while at school that he first became interested in graffiti. Enlarge Banksy's sandwich board-wearing monkey sold for £228,000 this year.

He has also painted murals including a Mona Lisa with a rocket launcher In 1983, the New York hip-hop group the Rock Steady Crew toured Europe, appearing at the Royal Variety Performance with a number of graffiti artists. This performance was the inspiration for artists such as Massive Attack's 3D and Nick Walker, now an equally high-profile artist and designer who did the backdrop for the films Eyes Wide Shut and Judge Dredd. But Banksy's interest in the art is said to have caused a family rift. Former neighbour Mr Hallett said: 'The family was always very nice. I don't know for sure but I think Robin was working as a graffiti artist. He worked for other people and would disappear for months on end. He was quite nomadic. 'I would not go as far as to say he went off the rails, but there was some sort of rift in the family, probably because he didn't turn out quite as they hoped.

He just disappeared after he left home.' In 1985, Bristol's Arnolfini Gallery hosted an exhibition called Graffiti Art In Britain, at which artists sprayed paint directly on to the gallery walls and the hip hop band The Wild Bunch, which later became Massive Attack, played. In an interview in 2006 with pop-culture magazine Swindle, Banksy said: 'I came from a relatively small city in southern England. When I was about ten years old, a kid called 3D was painting the streets hard. I think he'd been to New York and was the first to bring spray painting back to Bristol. I grew up seeing spray paint on the streets way before I ever saw it in a magazine or on a computer. '3D quit painting and formed the band Massive Attack, which may have been good for him but was a big loss for the city. Graffiti was the thing we all loved at school. We did it on the bus on the way home from school.

Everyone was doing it.' Flower power: A double yellow line turns into a huge yellow flower - with artist 'self-portrait' - in London Robin Gunningham left school at 16 after doing GCSEs and began dabbling in street art. The following year, as part of Operation Anderson, undercover police arrested 72 artists across Britain on criminal damage charges. Those arrested included Tom Bingle (aka Inkie), the graffiti artist acknowledged to be Banksy's partner in crime, who is now head of creative design at the computer games manufacturer Sega. He was tried but acquitted. Robin Gunningham was not arrested. Nor is there any record of Banksy being apprehended. But the artist has confessed he had by now become expert at evading police. In his book Wall And Piece, he said: 'When I was 18, I spent one night trying to paint LATE AGAIN in big silver bubble letters on the side of a passenger train. British Transport Police showed up and I got ripped to shreds running away through a thorny bush. The rest of my mates made it to the car and disappeared so I spent over an hour hidden under a dumper truck with engine oil leaking all over me.

'As I lay there listening to the cops on the tracks, I realised I had to cut my painting time in half or give up altogether. I was staring straight up at the stencilled plate on the bottom of a fuel tank when I realised I could just copy that style and make each letter 3ft high. 'I got home at last and crawled into bed next to my girlfriend. I told her I'd had an epiphany that night and she told me to stop taking that drug 'cos it's bad for your heart.' As our investigation continued, our inquiries demonstrated again and again that the details of Robin Gunningham's life story dovetail perfectly with the known facts about Banksy. By 1998 Robin Gunningham was living in Easton, Bristol, with Luke Egan, who went on to exhibit with Banksy at Santa's Ghetto, an art store which launched at Christmas 2001 in London's West End. Enlarge Recurring motif: Another Mona Lisa in Glasgow However, when we approached him, Egan initially denied knowing and living with either Banksy or Robin Gunningham, even though he had exhibited with the former and the electoral roll had showed him living with the latter.

He eventually said: 'I lived with a guy, with Robin Gunningham. But ... ' 'But you're saying he wasn't Banksy?' 'Well, he wasn't then. I lived with him ages ago. I don't think Banksy was around then anyway.' Egan and Gunningham are believed to have left the house when the owner wanted to sell it. Camilla Stacey, a curator at Bristol's Here Gallery who bought the property in 2000, said that Banksy and Robin Gunningham are one and the same person. She knew the house had been inhabited by Banksy because of the artwork left there - and she used to get post for him in the name of Robin Gunningham. 'I bought the house that he used to live in,' she told us. 'He had rented out a room but I think there had been problems with the tenants and the landlord had to sort of repossess it or whatever, so he was just selling it. 'When I moved in, the place had been covered in graffiti and stuff like that. I threw things in the bin. 'At that point Banksy was just someone putting up stuff around Bristol.

He was just another artist who had graffitied around Bristol. It keeps me awake at night sometimes thinking about it.' Indeed, who wouldn't regret throwing out work that would now probably fetch tens of thousands? Suburban warrior: The semi in Bristol where Robin grew up It was in 1998 that Banksy and Inkie collaborated with other graffiti artists on a 400-yard Walls On Fire hoarding around Bristol's Harbourside. In local writer Steve Wright's unofficial biography, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home, Inkie said: 'I helped Banksy organise the event but took a bit of a back seat and got pretty drunk on the day if I remember rightly.' In 1999 Banksy painted the now famous Mild Mild West sign, which shows a teddy bear with a Molotov cocktail in his hand, on a wall opposite Subway Records in Stokes Croft, Easton. Jim Paine, founder of Subway Records, held the ladder. 'I knew Banksy from a while back, from the mid- to late Nineties when he was sharing a house in Easton, a couple of streets from me,' he said in Wright's book.

After spending some months in London, Banksy returned to Bristol in February 2000 for his first art exhibition, at the Severnshed restaurant - a former boatshed designed by Brunel. His work sold out on the opening night. 'It was the first time he had done work on canvas,' curator Robert Birse told us last week. 'He didn't have a clue how to make canvas stretch or prepare the artwork so we helped him with that side of it, but he had a very strong idea of what he wanted to do. 'I don't even know his name. He has a number of pseudonyms he gives to people he's working with, but at the time he only let his oldest mates in on everything. I presume I gave him cash [the proceeds of works he sold]. I could have written him a cheque without a name on it or I could have given him cash.' Banksy moved to London around the turn of the millennium, once again at the same time as a certain Robin Gunningham. Robin lived in a flat in Kingsland Road, Hackney, East London, with Jamie Eastman, who worked for Bristol's Hombre record label. Banksy drew a number of the record company's album covers.

In 2001 Banksy had his first unofficial London exhibition at which he spray-painted 12 works on to the whitewashed walls of a tunnel in Rivington, Shoreditch. But it was his show Turf War, in July 2003, held in a warehouse just yards from Robin Gunningham's flat, that put Banksy on the map. The exhibition included live pigs and a heifer sprayed with an Andy Warhol likeness. The Queen was depicted as a chimp. An animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest but the RSPCA gave its approval to the show. That same year Banksy shuffled into the Tate dressed as a pensioner and glued a picture to the wall - it stayed there for two-and-a-half hours - and demonstrated against the Iraq War. He had arrived. He has since sold works to singer Christina Aguilera, who bought three, including a pornographic picture of Queen Victoria with a prostitute, for £25,000.

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie blew £200,000 on his art in 2006 - among the works was a £120,000 twist on a Manet painting in which a white family lunch under an umbrella watched by 15 starving Africans. Banksy's works have also appeared in movies such as Children Of Men and Shoot 'Em Up, and he has sold Space Girl & Bird, the artwork for Blur's Think Tank album, to a bidder from America for a record £288,000. For someone so anonymous he has a very high profile. But where is Robin Gunningham, the mysterious figure whose whereabouts no one now knows but who crops up in numerous official records and always in the same place as Banksy, and at the same time? The man whose photograph was recognised by his former neighbour Anthony Hallett - although the same photograph was identified by several other sources as being of Banksy? The man who Camilla Stacey, along with several other contacts who wished to remain anonymous, told us actually was Banksy? It was time to find Robin's parents to see if they could help.

His mother Pamela lives in a neat modern bungalow in a village outside Bristol. After identifying ourselves, we asked her if she had a son called Robin. Her reaction was very odd. We showed her the Jamaica photograph and she was visibly startled, but said she didn't recognise the man in the photograph, to whom she bears more than a passing resemblance. We asked if she could put us in touch with him. 'I'm afraid I don't know how to get in contact with him,' she said. So she did have a son called Robin? 'No, I don't. I don't have a son at all.' We asked her if she had any other children. 'Yes, a daughter.' But no son and certainly not a son who went to Bristol Cathedral School? 'No,' she said, and went on to deny she was Pamela Gunningham, insisting that the electoral roll must be incorrect. Our conversation with Peter Gunningham, who now lives in a gated development in the suburb of Kingsdown, was equally baffling. Again, we presented the photograph of Banksy/Robin Gunningham. Mr Gunningham said he didn't recognise the person in the picture. We told him that we believed his son to be Banksy.

'No,' he replied. 'I can't help you, really.' Mr Gunningham politely continued to deny that his son was Banksy but his manner was almost playful. He refused to give us any information about Robin. It was all very strange. Had the couple never heard of Banksy or Robin Gunningham, one might have expected a reaction of complete bewilderment. This did not seem to be the case. We then contacted Banksy's public relations officer who, in the best Banksy tradition, neither confirmed nor denied the story but promised to get back to us. At the time of going to press, we were still waiting to hear. Banksy once told Swindle magazine: 'I have no interest in ever coming out. I figure there are enough self-opinionated a**holes trying to get their ugly little faces in front of you as it is.' Given Banksy's long-standing success at covering his tracks, there is, of course, the possibility that the trail we have been following is a red herring, a complex set-up. But if it is, it must be the most elaborate such ruse ever concocted. And if it is, where is Robin Gunningham?

• Additional reporting and pictures: Simon Trump, Ewan Fletcher, Adam Luck, Jason Buckner and Craig Hibbert. Share or comment on this article 19k Is Robin Cunningham the Mysterious and Unknown Grafitti Artist Banksy? Is Robin Cunningham the Mysterious and Unknown Grafitti Artist Banksy? "Cans graffiti art festival" image. Photo: EFE / ANDY RAIN. LONDON.- Is Robin Cunningham, 34 years old and who went to an expensive British school, the man who hides behind Banksy, the mysterious and unknown graffiti artist whose street works of art have gone around the world? According to The Mail on Sunday, that apparent low key man is Banksy. The newspaper has published information that reveals the supposed identity of the famous street artist. The newspaper bases its information on a photograph that shows the supposed Banksy with a spray can in Jamaica in 2004. Also, it gives accounts from former classmates and other people around his circle of friends, who know the author of some of the best known street art he has made in the last few years. Banksys identity is one of the best kept secrets in popular contemporary art.

Many newspapers have tried to throw some Light on the artist who has created a school and an absolute reference in the world of graffiti art. Before they has pointed out that his name might have been Robert Banks or Robin Banks. It has also been said that he has blond hair, tall and wears typical graffiti artist clothes. Some have described him as a cross between Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner. Earlier this year a painting attributed to Banksy on a wall on the Portobello Road in West London fetched 208,100 pounds ($414,000) in an online auction. Today's News Famous People from Bristol - VisitBristol.co.uk You are here: About Bristol > All about Bristol > Famous Bristolians Famous People from Bristol Bristol has plenty to boast about when it comes to famous people, places and stories. Have a look at just some of the claims to fame below, and if you know of any that we might have missed, then please get in touch and we'll be happy to add it to the list.

Famous residents of Bristol (past and present) Derren Brown Ewan Blair (Son of Tony Blair) Adam Hart Davies Blackbeard the Pirate (Edward Teach) Actors and Comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams (Little Britain) John Cleese Sean Moore (Manic Street Preachers) Elizabeth Frasier (Cocteau Twins) Through the ages John Cabot (1450 - 1498) Italian-born explorer who sailed from Bristol to Newfoundland on the Matthew in 1497. Local historians believe him to have lived in St Nicholas Street in Bristol's Old City. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of his voyage, the Cabot Tower was erected on Brandon Hill in 1897 and still stands today. John Wesley (1703 - 1791) Founder of the Methodist Church, Wesley worked and preached in Bristol. His statue can be seen outside the New Room in Broadmead - the first Methodist Chapel ever to have been built. Hannah More (1745-1833) Writer and social campaigner, Hannah More was born and raised in Bristol.

John Loudon McAdam (1746-1836) Scottish engineer John McAdam moved to Berkeley Square, Bristol in 1801 to help build and develop a new road system for the city. During his time with the Bristol Turnpike Trust, he developed a new process of road construction, which involved layering different types of crushed stone and gravel on top of one another, followed by a final layer of tar to make the road surface more durable. This method soon became known as tarmacadam (tar + McAdam), and was eventually shortened to Tarmac, which is still used on roads throughout the world today. Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1829) Famous for discovering laughing gas and inventing the miners' safety lamp, Sir Humphrey Davy had a laboratory in Dowry Square, Hotwells. Princess Caraboo (1791 - 1864) Princess Caraboo appeared in Almondsbury, near Bristol in 1817, speaking a strange and foreign language. The quest to identify her became a local sensation.

A mystery visitor claimed she had identified herself as Princess Caraboo of Javasu, and had escaped from a ship to whose captain she had been sold by pirates. She was later exposed as being Mary Willcocks of Devon, a cobbler's daughter, and her life story was made into a major feature film, not surprisingly titled 'Princess Caraboo'. Harvey's Bristol Cream John Harvey started a wine importing business in Bristol in the 19th Century, before creating a new blend of sherry, Harvey's Bristol Cream, available today across the world. Elizabeth Blackwell The first female doctor was born in Bristol and lived there for most of her life. Samuel Plimsoll (1824 - 1898) Plimsoll was born in Colston Parade, Bristol. He campaigned against overloading ships with cargo, resulting in the introduction of the Plimsoll line on every ship to show its maximum load capacity. Billy Butlin Butlin lived in Bristol as a small boy and attended St Mary Redcliffe school. He returned to Bristol as an adult and had his first taste of entertainment for the masses when he opened a hoop-la stall in Lock's Yard, Bedminster.

Paul Dirac (1902 - 1984) Born in Bishopston, Bristol in 1902, Paul Dirac was considered to be one of the greatest and most influential theoretical physicists of his time. He formulated the Dirac Equation, and was responsible for leading the way towards the discovery of antimatter. He was a close friend of Albert Einstein's, and during his life won a shared Nobel Prize in physics with Erwin Schrödinger. Cary Grant (1904 - 1986) Born Archibald Leach in Horfield, Bristol, Grant's first role in theatre was working at the Bristol Hippodrome. He made over 70 films and became one of the best-loved actors of all time. He remained a regular visitor to Bristol, usually staying in the Royal Hotel, now known as the Bristol Marriott Royal. In 2001, to mark the 70th anniversary of Grant's arrival in Hollywood, Bristol unveiled a new Cary Grant statue in Millennium Square by the harbourside. Banksy Controversial local grafitti artist famed throughout the world for his street art.

Some of his pieces have sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds, with Hollywood A-listers and celebrities being some of the top collectors of his work. Searching For Things to Do... What On-site parking or valet parking Spa and Treatment Room Who is Banksy and what is his real name? The man behind the myths and rumours Who is Banksy and what is his real name? The man behind the myths and rumours Banksy Telegraph Reporters 5 June 2016 • 10:02pm The anti-establishment artist has always kept his name and identity a closely guarded secret, but a Sunday newspaper investigation in 2008 "revealed" who they believe to be the Scarlet Pimpernel of modern art. By remaining anonymous he has created an air of mystery which has helped him to become one of the most successful artists of his generation. So, just who is Banksy? What is his real name? This is still a mystery. The artist has said he will never reveal his identity. In 2008, a newspaper reportedly unmasked Banksy as Robin Gunningham. Has this been proven? Not exactly. Nothing has been confirmed, nor denied.

But scientists at Queen Mary University of London claim to have "tagged" Banksy using geographic profiling. This technique is usually reserved for catching serial criminals. They also suggest Gunningham to be the artist. This stemmed from a photo taken in Jamaica showing a man, with a spray can at his feet. If Gunningham is the elusive street artist, what do we know about him? Gunningham is "a former public schoolboy brought up in middle-class suburbia" and attended the £9,240-a-year Bristol Cathedral School. He was a gifted artist at school. Watch | Banksy uses Steve Jobs artwork to highlight refugee crisis 00:36 If it is not Gunningham, who else could be Banksy? Another name commonly linked to the artist is another Bristolian, Robin Banks or Banx (from which Banksy is said to have evolved). A Banksy artwork changed by King Robbo King Robbo was another - the graffiti artist died in 2014. Speculation arose when Banksy painted over one of Robbo's works on the Camden Canal, contravening the graffiti code of conduct, which states that only artists ever paint over their own work. A tit-for-tat feud ensued.

It's unclear why he would feud with himself. Paul Horner, originally from Liverpool, is another name in the hat. His identity as Banksy was "revealed" after he was arrested by Metropolitan Police at his studio (this was a hoax). Mr Brainwash - or comical street artist Thierry Guetta - is another candidate. He appeared in the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which has led people to believe he was a hoax created by Banksy or that he is Banksy. Keeping It Spotless Banksy could be artist Damien Hirst's alter ego. The pair collaborated for the piece Keeping It Spotless, which features a French maid sweeping under a spot painting. After years of assumptions that the most famous guerrilla artist alive is a man, he could be a woman. There are also suggestions that the street artist is a collective of seven artists or could not exist at all. Who are his inspirations? Banksy was inspired by the French stencil artist Blek le Rat and his fellow Bristolian 3D (or Robert Del Naja), who went on to form Massive Attack. What do we know as fact? It is claimed Banksy was given the name after the England goalkeeper Gordon Banks while playing for the local team.

Whether this is true or not, we do know is that Banksy was a goalkeeper for the Bristol-based football club Easton Cowboys and Cowgirls. Now that he has grown up, his parents think he is a painter and decorator. Banksy has been captured on film and photographed in the past but is always wearing a mask or hood, as he did in his spoof 2010 grafitti film Exit Through the Gift Shop, "the world's first street art disaster movie". Banksy rose to fame by using stencils to paint grafitti images on public walls, often with a topical political message. His images have become so popular that some property owners have opted to protect his creations rather than wash them off. Does it matter who Banksy is? Some say no. He is providing a service and joy to art lovers around the world. Others, such as the former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg, claim he is a menace to society, defacing property with his grafftti. Banksy's work has also been called vandalism. Either way, maybe the truth has been hidden in plain sight. Who Is Banksy?

Banksy's Real Identity Has Been Revealed By Science By Matt Miller Mar 5, 2016 After starting as a freehand graffiti artist in the early-'90s, Banksy's first known stenciled mural appeared on an office building in Bristol in 1997. The mural shows a Teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police. By the early 2000s, Banksy's work had appeared on buildings and in galleries around the world, his paintings were selling for upwards of $50,000 to major celebrities, yet his identity was still unknown. Through international fame, a major Banksy documentary, huge art events and shows in major cities, Banksy granted few interviews and kept his real name secret. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below For years, journalists, fans and the art community have speculated about Banksy's true identity. In 2008, the Daily Mail conducted an exhaustive investigation into Banksy and found him to be "a former public schoolboy brought up in middle-class suburbia," named Robin Gunningham, though the Very Reputable Publication was unable to confirm it.

Later, in 2014, an article in The Guardian described Banksy as , "a young graffitist on the streets of Bristol who went by the name of Robin Banx or Banks (from which Banksy evolved), inspired by the French stencil artist Blek le Rat and his fellow Bristolian 3D (or Robert Del Naja), who went on to form Massive Attack." Most Popular Though many have guessed over the years, scientists believe they've finally discovered Banksy's true identity. By analyzing the locations and frequency of Banksy's work, experts say his name is in fact Robin Gunningham. "We use a Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) model of geographic profiling, a mathematical technique developed in criminology and finding increasing application within ecology and epidemiology, to analyze the spatial patterns of Banksy artworks in Bristol and London," the researchers explain . "The model takes as input the locations of these artworks, and calculates the probability of 'offender' residence across the study area. Our analysis highlights areas associated with one prominent candidate (e.g., his home), supporting his identification as Banksy." Is it appropriate for researchers to unmask a man who chooses to live in anonymity?

According to the BBC , Banksy's lawyers delayed the release of the study because of its wording in a press release. However, one of the author's of the study Steve Le Comber said he didn't believe the researchers had done anything wrong, the BBC reported : He and his colleagues are fans of the artist, Dr Le Comber said, and did not believe their work had "unmasked" him. "I'd be surprised if it's not [Gunningham], even without our analysis, but it's interesting that the analysis offers additional support for it."You sort of default to the terminology from criminology, where you're talking about suspects and crime sites, but that doesn't imply any moral judgment - that these are actually crimes, or to be deplored, or whatever." Or, maybe Banksy is behind the alleged research, himself. That'd be a very Banksy thing to do. More from Esquire: Is this Banksy? Elusive graffiti artist 'pictured after his van broke down while installing artwork in New York' | Daily Mail Online comments Reclusive graffiti artist Banksy has apparently been caught on camera overseeing the creation of one of his artworks in New York.

A man in a flat cap and paint-spattered overalls was photographed trying to fix a 'moving painting' in a van which had broken down, as part of the artist's month-long 'exhibition' in the U.S. That person is now believed by several newspapers to be the elusive Banksy, who has never confirmed his identity and of whom no picture is definitely known to exist. Scroll down for video Unmasked? This photograph apparently shows reclusive graffiti artist Banksy in New York City Artwork: Banksy was supposedly pictured overseeing this 'moving painting' in a truck in Manhattan last week The artist's real name is thought to be either Robin Banks or Robin Gunningham, but all that is known for sure is that he is from Bristol. Previously photographs purporting to show Banksy were taken in Santa Monica in 2011 and East London in 2007. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Both images feature a white man in his 30s of average build with brown hair - making them compatible with the latest image, which was taken in the East Village neighbourhood of Manhattan.

Banksy, whose work has been painted on the sides of buildings around Bristol, London and other cities, has always insisted he will never reveal his true identity. Unique: Inside Banksy's truck was a mobile garden complete with rainbow and babbling brook Mobile: Banksy's art in New York has not just been graffiti, he also created a mobile installation in this tag covered delivery truck Previous appearance: This photo taken in 2011 apparently shows Banksy painting in Santa Monica THE ART OF DECEPTION? EARLIER 'SIGHTINGS' OF THE MYSTERIOUS BANKSY Mystery man: Banksy appears in his 201 film Exit Through The Gift Shop He's the Scarlet Pimpernel of modern art and his true identity remains a jealously guarded secret. A network of myths has grown up around him. That his real name is Robin Banks. That he used to be a butcher. That his parents don't know what he does, believing him to be an unusually successful painter and decorator. Then there's the suggestion that Banksy is actually a collective of artists and doesn't exist at all. Banksy's refusal to reveal himself may have started simply to avoid prosecution for what could be described as acts of vandalism.

However by remaining anonymous he has created an air of mystery which has helped him to become one of the most successful artists of his generation. He has been photographed in the past but always wearing a mask or hood. In 2008 he was reportedly 'unmasked' as Robin Gunningham, a former public schoolboy from Bristol with a passion for art. At the time Banksy's agent refused to confirm or deny the story. Banksy then wrote on his website:'I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.' Fans had hoped he would finally reveal himself in his spoof 2010 grafitti film Exit Through The Gift Shop - he did appear in the film however he was heavily pixellated. The film tells the story of an eccentric shop-keeper-turned-documentary-maker who attempts to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on him and gives few clues as to the artist's identity. Banksy has resurfaced several times since, notably in 2011 when pictures were taken of a man daubing lettering on a water tank in Santa Monica.

The story goes that a homeless man had been living inside the tank for years and Banksy's artwork resulted in him being kicked out. Banksy had turned Tachowa Covington’s makeshift Pacific Coast Highway home into a piece of art by spray painting along the side of the bus-sized tank ‘This looks a bit like an elephant’. But after the art world got wind of it someone bought Covington’s squat with the intention of selling to collectors. Banksy reportedly made amends with Covington by providing him with a sizeable sum of money. He said this week that his plans in New York had been hampered by the speed of building in the city as places he wanted to paint were redeveloped. 'I returned to find most of the empty lots I planned to use have got condos built on them already,' Banksy said in a rare interview with the Village Voice. He said he staked out the city months ago and was shocked at the speed of development. 'I chose it for the high foot traffic and the amount of hiding places,' he said.

'Maybe I should be somewhere more relevant, like Beijing or Moscow, but the pizza isn't as good.’ The famously private graffiti artist chose the New York City paper for his interview because he ‘feels an affinity with people who provide quality content for free on street corners'. Through a publicist, Banksy discussed his work, his self-imposed anonymity, and his plans to create a new work on the streets of the Big Apple for every month in October. He speaks: Anonymous graffiti artist Banksy is in the middle of a month-long residency on the streets of New York City and recently gave a rare interview to the Village Voice Private: Banksy is shown in his 2010 documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop Tongue in cheek: Banksy is creating a work per day on the streets of New York. Pictured is his piece from October 8 ‘I represent the artist Banksy,’ began an email to the Village Voice with the subject line ‘confidential.’ The alt-weekly received the message in September from London art publicist Jo Brooks. Brooks would be the facilitator between the Voice and Banksy, who keeps his identity hidden in part because of the illegal nature of his work.

Most recently, that illegal work includes Better Out than In: An Artist Residency on the Streets of New York . The month long project began posting photographic evidence of Banksy’s work on the website BanksyNY.com. ‘The plan is to live here, react to things, see the sights - and paint on them,’ Banksy told the Village Voice in an email. ‘Some of it will be pretty elaborate, and some will just be a scrawl on a toilet wall.’ Starting on October 1, Banksy has used his masterful stenciling technique to turn New York City buildings into his canvas. Naughty paperboys, a dog peeing on a fire hydrant, and a Band-Aid covered balloon now decorate Manhattan and Brooklyn - or did until they were quickly painted over. Popular: Banksy's signature humour is at home on the streets of New York and his graffiti has attracted a swarm of attention Ruined: A Banksy artwork which was destroyed by vandals during his month-show Playful: Banksy says he must remain anonymous because of the illegal nature of his art.

Here, Banksy's signature stenciling can be seen on a Manhattan wall from October 1 There was also an attempt to turn the impatient graffiti of other spray painters into Broadway gold simply by stenciling ‘The Musical’ beneath screeds like ‘Playground mob’ and ‘Dirty underwear.’ In addition to his painted works, Banksy also created a mobile installation of a garden, complete with rainbow and waterfall, in the back of a delivery truck. Banksy told the Voice he visited New York ‘a couple of months ago’ to do reconnaissance for the October show, but declined to say how long he planned to stay as after attempting to do one piece of art every day in the city until October 31. ‘I started painting on the street because it was the only venue that would give me a show,’ he writes. ‘Now I have to keep painting on the street to prove to myself it wasn't a cynical plan.

Plus it saves money on having to buy canvases.’ One of the questions posed to the graffiti artist who's also sold art to the likes of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt centered on profit: 'Does the artist stand to make a profit from his New York residency?' 'There's no way round it—commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist,' he writes. 'We're not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it's hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.' Banksy has created much of his work in New York to be themed on the city. 'New York calls to graffiti writers like a dirty old lighthouse,' he said The musical! On October 4, Banksy turned some typical graffiti in New York into exciting Broadway fare FROM SUBURBIA TO GRAFFITI ROYALTY: THE PUBLIC SCHOOLBOY THEORY A school photograph of Robert Gunningham who many believe to be Banksy Two years ago, the Mail on Sunday carried out an exhaustive year-long investigation in an attempt to reveal Banksy's true identity.

The search began with a photograph taken in Jamaica showing a man in a blue shirt and jeans, with a hint of a smile on his face and a spray can at his feet. Taken four years ago, it was said to show Banksy at work. When the picture was published it appeared to be the first chink in the armour of anonymity with which the artist has shielded himself ever since his work began to attract the attention of the art world. Naturally, Banksy denied the picture was of him. Armed with this photograph, reporters travelled to Bristol, long said to have been Banksy's home city, where they made contact with a man who claimed to have once met the artist in the flesh. This man claimed not only to have met the elusive artist but was able to give a name - Robin Gunningham - and it doesn't require much imagination to work out how such a name could result in the nickname Banksy. Robin's father, Peter Gordon Gunningham, 66, is a retired contracts manager from the Whitehall area of Bristol. His mother, Pamela Ann Dawkin-Jones, 67, was a company director's secretary and grew up in the exclusive surroundings of Clifton. She now works in a nursing home.

When Robin was nine, the family moved to a larger home in the same street and it is there he spent his formative years and became interested in graffiti. A neighbour, Anthony Hallett, recalls the couple moving into the street as newlyweds and living there until 1998. They have since separated. When reporters showed Mr Hallett the Jamaica photograph, he said the man in it was Robin Gunningham. In 1984, Robin, then 11, donned a black blazer, grey trousers and striped tie to attend the renowned Bristol Cathedral School, which currently charges fees of £9,240 a year and lists supermodel Sophie Anderton as a former pupil. A school photograph, taken in 1989, of a bespectacled Robin Gunningham shows a discernible resemblance to the man in the Jamaica photograph. Indeed, fellow pupils remember Robin, who was in Deans House, as being a particularly gifted artist. Scott Nurse, an insurance broker who was in Robin's class, said: 'He was one of three people in my year who were extremely talented at art. He did lots of illustrations. I am not at all surprised if he is Banksy.

He was also in the house rugby team and I think he played hockey as well.' In the rare interviews Banksy has given (always anonymously), the artist has acknowledged that it was while at school that he first became interested in graffiti. Robin Gunningham left school at 16 after doing GCSEs and began dabbling in street art. By 1998 he was living in Easton, Bristol, with Luke Egan, who went on to exhibit with Banksy at Santa's Ghetto, an art store which launched at Christmas 2001 in London's West End. However, when reporters approached him, Egan initially denied knowing and living with either Banksy or Robin Gunningham, even though he had exhibited with the former and the electoral roll had showed him living with the latter. He eventually said: 'I lived with a guy, with Robin Gunningham. But ... ' 'But you're saying he wasn't Banksy?' 'Well, he wasn't then. I lived with him ages ago. I don't think Banksy was around then anyway.' Egan and Gunningham are believed to have left the house when the owner wanted to sell it.

Camilla Stacey, a curator at Bristol's Here Gallery who bought the property in 2000, said that Banksy and Robin Gunningham are one and the same person. She knew the house had been inhabited by Banksy because of the artwork left there - and she used to get post for him in the name of Robin Gunningham. 'I bought the house that he used to live in,' she told us. 'He had rented out a room but I think there had been problems with the tenants and the landlord had to sort of repossess it or whatever, so he was just selling it. 'When I moved in, the place had been covered in graffiti and stuff like that. I threw things in the bin. 'At that point Banksy was just someone putting up stuff around Bristol. He was just another artist who had graffitied around Bristol. It keeps me awake at night sometimes thinking about it.' In 1998 that Banksy and Inkie collaborated with other graffiti artists on a 400-yard Walls On Fire hoarding around Bristol's Harbourside.

In local writer Steve Wright's unofficial biography, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home, Inkie said: 'I helped Banksy organise the event but took a bit of a back seat and got pretty drunk on the day if I remember rightly.' Banksy moved to London around the turn of the millennium, once again at the same time as a certain Robin Gunningham. Robin lived in a flat in Kingsland Road, Hackney, East London, with Jamie Eastman, who worked for Bristol's Hombre record label. Banksy drew a number of the record company's album covers. In 2001 Banksy had his first unofficial London exhibition at which he spray-painted 12 works on to the whitewashed walls of a tunnel in Rivington, Shoreditch. But it was his show Turf War, in July 2003, held in a warehouse just yards from Robin Gunningham's flat, that put Banksy on the map. The exhibition included live pigs and a heifer sprayed with an Andy Warhol likeness. The Queen was depicted as a chimp. An animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest but the RSPCA gave its approval to the show.

That same year Banksy shuffled into the Tate dressed as a pensioner and glued a picture to the wall - it stayed there for two-and-a-half hours - and demonstrated against the Iraq War. He had arrived.

Question: How is Bristolian Robin Cunningham known in the art world?
Answer: Banksy